


like wings of trees

by Lir_Soracia



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Introspection, Light Angst, Mourning/Remembrance, Nature
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:27:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27486520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lir_Soracia/pseuds/Lir_Soracia
Summary: Autumn has come to New York again. Magnus walks among the falling leaves and remembers.
Comments: 13
Kudos: 6
Collections: Hunter's Moon 500 Prompts





	like wings of trees

**Author's Note:**

> This can be read as pre-canon, as I would do, or many many years after Alec's death. Or even both. Character death is only implied, and no one is named, so I have not tagged MCD, but please take care of yourselves!
> 
> Written for the HM500 prompt: Wings

_ laurie lantar lassi súrinen, yéni únótime ve rámar aldaron ~  _ Tolkien, from the lament _Namárië_

Autumn in New York can be very beautiful, as the leaves turn colour, growing bright and showing off before they let go, falling gently with the end of the season. The seasons that always turn, reliable as sunrise, and autumn comes and goes. It's beauty is fleeting, but all the bolder for it, flashing its colours in a statement of life even as it comes to the end, the cycle turning once again.  _ Remember me _ , it says in bright signal, a flare against the coming dark.  _ Remember, until I come again. Life will come again.  _

It brings a melancholy smile to Magnus's mouth as he walks through Central Park, leaves softly falling around him. How many years, how many seasons has he seen, just like this? His native land has none, but he has more often lived above the invisible lines that demarcate that climate. So he has watched the years turn, marked by the seasons, the cycle of life again and again. 

A cycle which does not touch him, which flows around him like a rock in a stream. He will never know the aging, the ending, the letting go; not for himself, not like this. He does not need the message of the golden, red and orange leaves that fall, the shout of promise that even in the ending, there is life. There is no ending, no darkness coming for him. He is alone in it, still, again, as he has always been. 

Alone because he is separate, because time passes him by, uncountable years like the wings of trees, golden in memory, only leaves in the wind. No one who was able to has ever wanted to stay, and even when they wanted to, mortals never could. The world will keep turning, and life will go on, will return and flourish again in its own ways - but not for them. 

The years of mortals are so few, and they indeed can be counted - carefully, lovingly, preserved in memory as well as he can - but after the fading, the letting go, the end... there is no return of life, no coming back, not for them. 

Still,  _ remember me,  _ they say.  _ Remember life, remember joy, remember love, and it will come again. It will come again for you, remember it. Remember us, our love and our wish that you will not be alone. Not always, not truly. And when the season turns, when it passes and the leaves of life fall again, we will be here. You have us always, in your heart. Remember.  _


End file.
